Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-03-19

abSolutism. The iron abSolutism of Bis
marck engenders German socialism, which
is kept in state of repression by 500 900
armed men. The constitutional imperial
ism of England engenders the rent-repudi-
ating poverty of Ireland. As compared
with these political systems. we have
erected a government here in American
upon principles widely at variance with all
the old forms of usurpation. 1t will be
maintained only so long as the character of
its citizenship possesses that degree of intel
ligenee, that moderation of individual
character, that liberation of all the relig-
ious and civil rights of others, which fit
men for self-government. We have estab-
lished system of perfect religious tolera-
ton upon the broad theory that religion is
entirely matter of private conscience
based upon the rights of exercise of private
judgment. 1t therefore becomes speedily
apparent that whoever entertains the opin-
ion that the rights Of private Judgment
should be denied to mankind. that religion
is the concernment of the state is in no
sense reinforcement to the aggregate of
| tolerant opinion upon which national reli-
gious liberation alone can be founded and
| upon which it must DEFEND for perpetuity
Each individual citizen being an integral
portion of the great sovereignty of the COM
monwealth education in all its branches is
the concern of the state. Since govern
ment with US is not an external force act
ing upon subject citizenship, since it is
not an entity abstract and apart from the
people, it follows that its perpetuity will
depend upon the reasonableness of the
people, and upon their intellectual capa-
city to acquire an intelligent perception of
the necessity of obedience. We must edu-
cate the people because they are sovereign,
has l.
to rule. The non-sectarian system of pub
lie education is therefore an indispensable
adjunct to the perpetuity of republican in
situations. Whoever. therefore, believes that
education is the concern of the church, and
not of the state, is inimical to the perpetu-
alton of the non-Sectarian education so in
dispensable to the perpetuity of the repub-
tic. Sectarian education is indeed the be-
ginning of connection between the state
and the church, because sectarian educa-
ton could proceed upon no other hypothe-
sis than the established truths of religion
truths which, to find a place in the public
educational system, must first receive the
sanction of legislation. Under all the old
forms of monarchy-indeed, under all gov
ernments but our own, there is the plain
recognition of the three groups-the family,
the church and the state Under ours we
have but two-the family and the state,
Thus have we brought the unit of the state.
the family, into close alliance with its great
sum, the nation, and have eliminated the
unnatural intervention of the church.
Blending together as they do, these institu-
tons constitute distinctive Americanism.
Even beyond this a distinctive nationalism
demanding the fealty of distinetively
American patriotism.
1t was fayorite maxim of the gentle
Charles Kingsley that it is by great senti-
ments well directed, and by lofty patriot
ism thoroughly comprehended. that great
souls and great nations live" The unintel-
hgent transplanted patriotism of yesterday
may be little more than the self graduation
of escape from oppression; but in that ma
tionaiism so foreign to the conceptions OF
the civilization which produced it, there is
not that complete assimilation from which
the love and veneration of country " hich
we call patriotism, proceeds. That his in
stincts, his inherited aptitudes, and in short
his entire intellectual, mental and moral
contour, are foreign, is his misfortune, not
his fault. The German socialists who threw
dynamite bombs among the Chicago police
were, to their conception, assaulting gov
ernmental restraint 1t was impossible for
them to understand, with their limited ex-
perience of free Institutions, that the exist
ence OF guardlanS OF the peace meant the
conservation of their rights, to the security
OF which the government was pledged. 1t
was impossible for them to conceive how
the majesty of the law simply meant the
majesty of the people. That the govern
ment against which they were manifesting
the blind fury of the ignorance born of des-
potism, proceeded from themselves, and
was not hateful external force. Libertyi is
not national, right is not national, truth is
not national but the German expression of
these virtues on this occasion deserves the
gallows. And while we pray that the tree
of liberty shall shoot It's top to the sun, and
its boughs shall hang over the ends of the
world, that wearied nations may lie down
and rest in its shade, we will find it both
wholesome and salutary to ornament the
limbs of that tree with such specimens of
German nationality as may fire bombs
charged with dynamite upon the represen-
tatives of government and law in this
country.